TA-DA! partners with HPI D-School to develop a New multi-sensory tool for Children’s Language Learning
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: [July 18, 2022]
[TA-DA! Language Productions]
[pr@tadalp.com]
Hasso Plattner Institute School of Design Thinking and Silicon Valley Startup TA-DA! Language Productions have partnered up to develop a new way to help young children grow up being bilingual.
LOS ALTOS, Calif./LUXEMBOURG, Lux., July 18, 2021 /TA-DA! Language Productions, Inc./ –– Edtech startup TA-DA! Language Productions announced today that they have joined forces with the prestigious Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) and its School of Design Thinking to develop a new tool for children’s language learning that makes it easier to be bilingual, especially for those families who do not speak the languages their kids need or want to learn - both in ease of accessibility in their daily lives, but also multi-sensory, tactile and playful so kids enjoy living the experience.
The HPI School of Design Thinking is known to tackle some of the world’s most urgent problems. They work with non-profit, corporate and public entities to develop projects that address real-world problems. As Michelle Glorieux, CEO and founder of TA-DA! shared, “It’s a tremendous privilege to have been chosen by the HPI D-School”.
Dr. Claudia Nicolai, Academic Director of the HPI D-School, shared the sentiment: “We value, support and are extremely enthusiastic to work alongside TA-DA! in bringing innovative solutions to what we see as a 21st century peacekeeping mission. Language learning offers a great opportunity for students to immerse themselves in others’ worlds and foster empathy and understanding across economic, social and political divides. We need a more dynamic approach to learning languages and cultures in our rapidly changing, increasingly interconnected, contemporary world.”
Not only has the Covid Pandemic brought the frequency with which our youngest kids live on-line to whole new levels of excessive, but it’s made it even more evident how important it is that we learn to respect and understand the different ways we think, talk and live around the world if humans are to truly learn to work together to solve the growing complexity of our shared, world problems.
Our CEO noted that as both a language teacher and mother to a multilingual child, she saw so many other parents craving more tools that would allow their kids to grow up being bilingual but finding themselves limited by obstacles like lack of age-appropriate resources, lack of playful resources you didn’t have to bribe kids to utilize, or simply a flat-out lack of resources that helped do the talking for those parents who didn’t speak the languages their kids were needing or wanting to learn.
The irony is that the time we are told as parents to limit passive screen exposure also happens to be the time that is best - and easiest - for language acquisition. And yet just about every resource that exists for parents lives behind a screen (TV/apps).
“Screen-based apps and television in the target language can be a tremendous ally, especially for the language my son needs that I myself do not know; but like all things in life, it is about balance. We at TA-DA! are committed to bringing more resources that allow kids to experience any new language as closely as possible to their first - no matter what language their parents or teachers may or may not speak. Our talking book collections were our first offering. Now taking that to the next level and creating yet another alongside the HPI D-School is a dream come true,” shared TA-DA! CEO Glorieux.
The primary objective of the partnership, otherwise known as the ‘design challenge’, is to develop a device that imparts both world language, culture and music (one of the greatest carriers of culture) - in a way in which kids are actually enthusiastic to interact.
Other key aims include multi-language offerings, storytelling devised from books and dictionaries from the TA-DA! talking book library, as well as the capability of real kids creating the device’s content, allowing them to share ‘directly’ their worlds, dreams, fears, anecdotes - and culture with other kids all over the world.
HPI D-School team enjoying the (TA-DA!) creative design thinking process
“We believe Design Thinking can help create the world we wish for. Design Thinking can activate us as creators and change the way we see ourselves and others. Design Thinking is filled with optimism, hope, and the joy that comes from making things change by making things real. We believe that diversity leads to better design, and opens up a greater range of possibilities”. (HPI D-School)
Be on the lookout for the unveiling of the fruit of this collaboration and its world of possibilities later this month.
About HPI D-School:
The HPI School of Design Thinking (HPI D-School) was founded by Hasso Plattner in Potsdam, Germany in 2007 based on the model of the Stanford d.school. In small, multidisciplinary teams, students from all kinds of fields develop innovative and human-centered solutions for complex, yet meaningful and important problems needing solutions - like tackling sanitation issues in Ghana, redesign the experience of getting in and out of a vehicle for people with reduced mobility, communication systems for nurses in South Africa, and now - increased access for our youngest learners to have more options to learn languages and cultures in age-appropriate, accessible ways.
About TA-DA! Language Productions:
TA-DA! (www.tadalanguages.com) magically weaves paper technology, art, words, storytelling, sound and music for children ages 0-14+ to bring native speakers to children so that they may learn languages & culture in a fun, new way. TA-DA! believes language learning for children should be immersive – and fun. Children should have a way to interact with native speakers no matter what languages they have access to at home or school; they should be able to embark as early as possible; and it should be accessible in a multi-sensory, playful, age-approrpriate ways. TA-DA! is the recent recipient of Startup of the Year Luxembourg - and is the selected startup of Wilson Sonsini in Silicon Valley.
About TA-DA!’s Talking Book Series:
TA-DA!’s most recent developments include the multi-award-winning Language Adventures interactive board book series for ages 0-5 years, currently available in six languages (English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, German, Luxembourgish and French), as well as the Children’s Talking Dictionary series, currently available in American English, with Spanish and German soon to make their grand debut. Our talking books are made alongside 4x Grammy-Award winning Jesse Lewis (known for his collaborations with Y-Yo Ma, Latin Grammy winners Andrés Landínez and Marco Moreno, Oscar winning Kelsey Suan, and more. The Language Adventures series initiates newborns up to the sights and sounds of a new language alongside native speaker pronuciation of new words accompanied by original toe-tapping tunes; while the Talking Dictionary series brings children the building blocks of language learning, words spoken by real native speakers located worldwide – and their cultures, in a multi-sensory, interactive, and playful kid-friendly way. Boasting more than 10 hours of audio in a normal looking hardback book, 1000 words, and 10,000+ audio assets in each volume, the Talking Dictionary offers CD quality, hi-fi sound (8x better sound quality than other ‘sound’ books), up to 23 randomized native speakers per word, five levels of gameplay with the help of children’s #1 educational app maker Joe Shochet of codeSpark, volume control, and even an integrated headphone jack. TA-DA! Language learning just got SUPER fun.
For more information, contact:
pr@tadalp.com